When exams are over, I am going to…

° Paint my nails deep, dark red. 

° Buy dark purple lipstick.

° Go shopping for warm clothing, so that I can actually leave the house at night without freezing my butt off. 

° Finally go for my Learners. (I am failure at Life, I know.)

° Read. All. The. Books. People. Have. So. Kindly. Leant. Me. This. Semester. 

° Reply to all the letters people have sent me. 

° Write about all the things I want to write about. 

° Start working on pieces for essay competitions. 

° Clean/clear my bloody desk. It is a nightmare at the moment.

° Create my wall planner for next semester. Remember: black and white with a gold/silver text overrun.  

° Start going to the gym regularly again. 

° Um, yeah, just enjoy my own projects and life and time etc. 


Come Friday...

You're all lovely, and I enjoy the attention, but I'm not good at this, you know? Or you would know, if you knew me. I can't kiss people I don't know very well too much. I need to feel loved, understood, and we just can't get there in such a short timeframe. There needs to be more to this for me to enjoy it. 

Once upon a time, I thought it didn't matter. All you needed to be was an idea of something or someone, and I could be satisfied. But lately it feels too empty. 

I'm learning about myself and my tastes. What works and what doesn't. All in good time. 

I love people - diving into them, feeling a part of them, making a part of them a part of me. It's what I do. Asking questions and being open to listening to matters of the heart and matters of the mind. Yet my love is not equal. It comes in varying degrees and ways. Sometimes in admiration, other times in desperation. I am not immune to boredom. The ones who stick have to feel fuller than I am. Like they hold infinity underneath their belt and with each question they will unfold even more wonderfully than ever before. Quite the idealist. 

I like the challenge of our discussions - the way we bounce ideas off of one another, dissecting, divulging, being mad and sad, all at once. 
But you treat me like a child - ready to be cultured, preened, worked on for the real human model. 
I'm almost there. I just need to read this, know that, and "soak up my surroundings" a little better first. 
In the mean time, I am to be discarded into the background. Not exciting or full enough yet. A little time can be spent, but you're not prepared with the love of a mother to soften, love, and nurture. It's terribly unsatisfying. 
So I come away, stripped of my esteem, in a state of emotional haywire - lonely, disgusted, sad. 
It's funny, because like a pedophile you like my body, when it's available to you. You're perfectly happy to unclothe me, touch me, have me touch you, as long as I know it doesn't mean anything to you. As long as you can't be pinned as morally objectionable. It makes me sick. 
I sit next to you, hating myself and hating you, and feeling you mustn't want us to sit too close in case I get the wrong idea. I become all too aware of how I have failed myself. Where is my sensuality? My big, lovely ideas? I am boring, repetitive, illogical, ugly. How could anyone I love, love me? 
That is why I cannot see you anymore. Every time I come away torn. 

I am filled with utter elation. 
I am so lucky. I know I say that a lot, but I really am. My life is perfect. I have everything to look forward to, and also so much to appreciate in the now. 
Smart, kind friends who are willing to discuss matters of the heart and matters of the mind with me in ample quantities. 
Supportive, interesting family who love and involve me in things. 
Uni work which is challenging and exciting in all the right ways. 
Job prospects - being paid as a writer! 
Beautiful poetry, novels, art all available to me at the click of a finger. 
People who want to kiss me sometimes. 
All the darkness in my life seems worth it. 

I was right to tell you that we shouldn't kiss anymore, that I had decided we shouldn't kiss anymore. The clarity soothes me. Now that you know what I am feeling at least in some slight way, I can move on without the messiness of feeling we are not on the same page. Today is a new day. I am wearing my favourite tshirt with fine silver thread embroidery, murky green jeans, and black gumboots. My hair is out in natural waves, free and inviting of new experiences, new people. I don't regret what happened as much as I did yesterday - it taught me a valuable lesson I am glad to have learnt so early on at university. There are people I do not want to associate with and they exist just as much here as they do anywhere, and I can handle them. There are also people who might excite me, but if I don't excite them I must tread carefully, in case my excitement becomes all encompassing and results in hurt. You were one of those people, but I am glad to announce that you no longer excite me - that all the shitty feelings you evoked have turned me against you. I do not want you like I used to. 

I thought it was okay to kiss you, but I see now that it didn't make me feel okay and so it wasn't okay. You made me feel so temporary, like I wasn't even sure I existed sometimes. Every part of who I am made to seem unimportant. 

My desire to suck you up and lavish you in compliments about how pretty, smart and amazing you are I falsely believed to be filled with utter goodness. I see now that I was wrong. You didn't care about my perfectly crafted idea of you and so my words were wasted. 

That is why I am separating myself from you. I need to appreciate who I am, and love who I am, and not be caught up in another person who isn't interested in being caught up with me. 

So no more sexual undertones and no more desperation. I think it'll be better off this way. 

You are wonderful and interesting and colourful. I wish there was a way we could be better friends, but time would never allow it. Your diaries are all that are left to contest to the friendship we could have had. It makes me very sad to see you so hopeless, so stuck in this slump. I would love to pick you back up and take you in, but I know I haven't the power within me. The best thing for me, in your mind, would to be without arms and legs: a big, adult baby. You could carry me around in your handbag, keeping me safe from the allegedly criminal world. It would please you to see me so helpless, so dependant on you. It makes me sick. I wish I could go back in time and talk with you before life destroyed you, before I destroyed you. To be friends with your true, lovely self… what a dream! Instead I am stuck with a nightmare. 

I am in such a lovely, peaceful mood. It feels strange that I can have all these thoughts and feelings and no one else can reach them. The only way to connect people is to extract my insides and pull out some scraggly, inadequate words. Life is magical, are you feeling it? I wonder about all the other feelings and thoughts happening at this very moment. I so wish I could go inside of everyone and explore. I bet it would be endlessly fascinating. For now, movies and novels will have to suffice. Pull me into their world. Show me that existence extends further and that the world is much bigger and much closer than I thought. 

I feel like kissing. Pushing myself inside of someone, having them tell me all of their secrets. Being open, sharing. It is so lovely to have people widen themselves for you. We could cuddle, read poetry. There would always be conversation because I always have questions. Everything about you matters. Every. single. little. thing. 

Do you mind that my writing is vague, flawed? I can't tell to what extent it is anything because I feel so connected to everything, everyone. I am an avid guesser. Yes, I understand what you're saying, a reference to... 

But I probably don't, and that saddens me. I want to know everything about everyone and go through all these wonderful rituals to get there. I need to believe that it is really happening, that I am really getting somewhere. Let me touch you, hold you, love you. Be real with me. I'm a vegan, but I have to say: sucking up bone marrow and giving electricity synapses is all I want in the world

I've been consumed with this idea of "love" being something you give freely without concern for how others feel about you. It seems reasonable to me. After all, I do despise expecting anything of people, particularly something so personal and beyond control. Emotions are what they are. You can't make someone feel something for you when they don't. Likewise, you can't force someone to stop feeling something for you when they do. 

But there are boundaries where actions are concerned. If someone doesn't like your romantic expressions, you should respect that and put those energies into something else. Don't spend time pestering them with poetical lines about their eyes being like the night sky (that's a thing, right?) or their presence as necessary to your wellbeing as light (another thing??? Lawl, don't even need light. I live in the internet realm). Take time to process it in your own time and if you feel neither of you are benefiting from your feelings, maybe it is time you try to move on, as difficult as that may seem depending on your investment in them.

I do believe there are cases where your subject of affection is benefiting from your "love" though, or you believe they do, and in those cases it can be trickier. You come to imagine yourself as their guardian angel: protecting them and giving into their desires. You care about their happiness! What could be wrong with that? And if done with the right attitude, I think this relationship has potential to work. But as soon as you start to hurt, as I predict most people do because loving someone so unconditionally is dangerous, back away. The truth is they probably don't need you as much as you need them to need you. 

Note: The right attitude/situation for this relationship would be: you love them, they respect you, and you fully accept that they do not feel the same way as you do. It doesn't hurt you to see them kissing others. Down to their happiness, amirite? Very altruistic. 

Basically, I just needed to get out some thoughts on the topic. Going from a 'serious relationship' to floundering like the small, seventeen-year-old I am has been an experience, even if I am only a month into it. I'm sure I have much more to learn. What would be your advice for me?